Genius be, as it has been described, and I hope, proved, the offspring of strong sensibility, the stronger its sensibility, the more it will notice, and the greater fund will it acquire for the exercise of comparison. For, it is impossible for sensibility to exist, without proportionate observation: indeed, experience proves, that the most delicate sensibility is the most quickly and frequently excited.

If Genius soonest acquire a fund for comparison, and Taste consist in the making of that comparison, Genius must, soonest, be enabled to acquire Taste. Its only task is to survey this fund, and begin comparing. Evidently, therefore, Genius must, according to its extent, be more or less susceptible of acquiring Taste.

How happens it, then, that Genius the most perfect, latest attains maturity of Taste? The reason is this: Genius, being the offspring of strong sensibility, is constantly intent on new objects, is ever feeding its curiosity, making new acquisitions; always restless; always insatiable; stops not to digest what it has already gained, but is ever looking forward in quest of more. No wonder, then, that thus agitated, though provided with every foundation for comparison, it does not subside into the deliberate temper, which this occupation requires: no wonder that it scorns such confinement. It forms its taste, later, when its ardour be

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gins to cool it cannot, sooner, endure to form it.

Another reason, why Genius is later in ats taining its maturity of taste, is the greater quantity of knowledge, which it has to digest. It has been filling its capacity with an immense store of every description: a long time must elapse before this be methodized, be sorted, and its due value ascertained. For this purpose, not only ought Genius to survey its materials, but to view them also in their various relations, to reduce them all into their proper sphere, and to give to each its just limits. The more it has to regulate, the longer must it be detained in the regulation. The varieties of this task, independently of its difficulties, cannot fail to render it a labour of considerable duration. Success must be the result of deep discernment and reflection.

If to the natural impediments attendant on the work itself, be added the disadvantage under which Genius labours from being unaccustomed to it, the occupation becomes longer, and more tedious. At his first entrance upon it, the man of Genius seems to be in a new world: he feels himself totally unacquainted with the undertaking, which he is beginning. He hears others discoursing on the advantages of just symmetry and order, and has no notion of these qualities. Suppose

a speech be the subject of discussion; he hears those around him praising the style, the method, the precision, and its other qualities, to which he experiences himself to be an utter stranger. The reason is, he has never considered them. His whole employment has been to collect, not to digest; hence, the excess of ignorance, of which he is conscious, when discretion is proposed to be his exercise when his judgment is to be called into action.

;

It is not surprising, therefore, under all these considerations, that Genius should be backward in acquiring maturity of taste. For the same reason, it is not in the least extraordinary, that many Geniuses must succeed each other, before they bring a great work to its just perfection: they require not only their own discernment, but the improvement which is to be obtained by the discernment of others. Homer's own knowledge would never have sufficed him, and Homer's own taste must have been to him a late acquisition.

We see, therefore, that the greater the genius, the later it makes the acquisition of

taste.

From the observations of this chapter it appears, that Genius is more susceptible of acquiring taste, may acquire it sooner, though it later acquires it in maturity, and is capable of

a more compleat attainment of that acqui

sition.

Having now, as I conceive, considered Genius in every essential point of view, relating to its origin, and nature, the first principles of it, to which alone I undertook to direct my attention; I shall offer a few cursory remarks on Taste.

TASTE.

CHAP. I.

The Nature and Origin of Taste.

TASTE is, of all the subjects which I have treated, the most important; because it alone enables us to discern what is sublime, or beautiful, and regulates the exertions of genius. Nevertheless, important as it is, I shall be very brief in my observations upon it; because its nature appears to have been already so well ascertained by a variety of authors, and so copiously described, that what I might deliver on the subject, would be, comparatively, of little importance.

The criterion of taste, I am inclined to think, is universally acknowledged. Some authors, indeed, determine it to be sensibility; and others, reason: yet, as Dr. Blair very judiciously observes, this difference turns chiefly on modes of expression; and both parties, in different instances to which they allude, agree